


Lessons Learned

by Racethewind_10



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Gen, Light Angst, Magical Pregnancy, Swan-Mills Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-06
Updated: 2015-02-06
Packaged: 2018-03-10 17:34:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3298406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Racethewind_10/pseuds/Racethewind_10
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coming to Storybrooke hadn’t been her choice. At first she stayed out of spite, then curiosity, then hope, then because everything was always falling apart and she had to help save it and finally, finally because she understood no matter where her feet went, no matter how much asphalt disappeared under the wheels of the Bug a part of her will always be here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lessons Learned

Written in response to this [gorgeous art](http://webgeekist.tumblr.com/post/110218653101/for-racethewind10-who-ficced-it-link-coming) by [Webgeekist](http://webgeekist.tumblr.com/) 

* * *

 

 

_“Always pack light, so you can leave in a hurry."_

Emma doesn't remember where the words came from or who spoke them first - if they'd even been spoken at all. They’ve been a part of her for so long time has obscured their origins. Equally likely to have come from an older, more cynical foster sibling as from her own observations, they represent the inevitable debris of a life spent bouncing from foster home to group home to the streets; of disappointment and doors shutting behind her and pitying looks from people who might have been more than strangers _but_...

She thinks the words are most likely her own. She certainly claimed them fiercely enough, repeated them until they became a mantra, worn and familiar as her red leather jacket - a patchwork cloak of similar sentiments that she'd clung to, had held around her until she no longer remembered how to take it off. 

_Don't hold on to things too tightly, they'll just get taken away._

_Always leave people before they can leave you._  

_Keep moving._

Emma doesn't remember when they stopped existing as mere words and became Truth, became the compass by which she fixed her life, pressing her feet to the gas pedal and moving her hand on the steering wheel day to day, city to city, job to job, a wandering knight with no king to serve and no castle to call home.

In her more whimsical moments (usually a couple beers down), Emma used to imagine herself that way. Used to envision her rusted, stolen bug as a noble steed to carry her on the next quest, her red jacket the armor that protected her from harm, or at least pavement. Those moments, however, were fleeting, cast aside with the dull clink of an empty beer bottle on the battered wood of a bar or the crinkling rasp of a fast food wrapper before it landed in the backseat. For more than a decade Emma wandered, uncooperative engine of the beetle never quite enough horsepower to reach a destination that didn’t exist: thin leather of her jacket a flawed shield against the slings and arrows of loneliness, of being  _unwanted_. 

Emma learned never to think of wherever she happened to be as ‘home.' Learned to exist on the outside, that place of not belonging that others shied from. She became comfortable there, eventually realilzing she could find other people on the outside - people who needed to be found for lots of usually not-nice reasons. People she could make money chasing. So she pulled her mantra tighter around herself, clinging to the lessons taught by balled fists, slammed doors, prison bars and the crying of a child she wasn't fit to parent  Emma spackled those lessons over her childhood dreams of homes and forever families and kept moving. It was for the best, she told herself. Life wasn't a fairy tale, happy endings weren't for girls like her. They were for Disney princesses, fictional characters living fake lives in movies that were of little use to her 19 and 22 and 28 year old self beyond a lit screen in a darkened room, the flickering colors something to focus on that was prettier than the blank ceiling or worn bedspread until exhaustion closed her eyes, sleep dragging her under so she could wake up the next morning and start all over again.

She was not a knight.

There was no grand quest.

There was no king who would want her service.

Emma Swan is very aware that the irony of her life – in the classic Greek tragedy sense – is staggering. 

There’ve been many times in the years since she blew out a candle and wished to not be alone on her birthday that she’s wanted to scream at fate and destiny, wanted to wrap her hands around Rumple’s throat and shake, wanted to find the author of that damn Book and let her right uppercut – the one that’s dropped men twice her size – connect with his face, shattering bone and spraying blood. There have been times when the fabric of those childhood lessons seemed stitched with thorns. When the weight of expectations - of titles like Mother, Daughter, Sister, _Savior_ \- pressed down into her shoulders and back until she bled. Until it was all she could do not to get in the Bug and drive until the sun came up because she’d broken all her rules and they were the only things keeping her alive...

Coming to Storybrooke hadn’t been her choice. At first she stayed out of spite, then curiosity, then hope, then because _everything was always falling apart_ and she had to help save it and finally, finally because she understood no matter where her feet went, no matter how much asphalt disappeared under the wheels of the Bug a part of her will always be here.  

 _It’s possible to hold on to something, if someone else is holding_ , _too._

_They aren’t always going to leave you._

_You are wanted._

_You are loved._

_Stay._

Somewhere along the way Emma's learned other lessons. That staying still doesn't mean drowning, that arms around her waist are a shelter not a trap, that “I love you” is a gift, not an obligation. That giving herself doesn’t mean losing herself. She’s completed her quests (plural) and found a Queen to serve, and somehow, it wasn’t the coughing engine of her stolen car that brought her to where she belonged.

It wasn’t her armor or her weapons that saved the day.

Because True Love really is the most powerful magic of all and she’s found it in spades in the faith of a not-so-little-anymore boy and the trust of a woman who has been hurt by so many. It fills the house at 108 Mifflin Street with laughter and teasing, soft words and quiet gestures, with the smell of lasagna and cookies and cinnamon, with Magic that can transcend realms, and the magic of a warm, bright home after a long, cold day.

Emma has too many things and too many people and she cares, she cares _so damn much_.  She knows with absolute certainty that these things, these people, this place, this house that she started – accidentally, cautiously, carefully – thinking of as _home_ have weighed her down.

She carries too much in her heart to ever travel light again.

It's made her happier than she ever dared hope. 

 

* * *

 

Emma wakes to the physical manifestation of that weight pressing her down into the cushions of the couch, a kind of comfortable lassitude making her arm clumsy as she reaches for the buzzing somewhere near her hip.  Green eyes still sticky with sleep squint at the screen of Regina’s phone, excruciatingly careful not to disturb the warm weight resting almost on top of her as she keys in the lock code. She doesn’t remember dozing off but the fire burns low in the hearth and it’s fully dark outside the window, a few large white flakes drifting past the glass promising more to come. The house is hushed and still, it’s only other occupant on the other end of the message illuminating the screen.

_headed home_

Another vibration and another message pops up

_its starting to snow again. i'd be a lot safer in a new car._

She grins and her chest fills with something like sunlight.  Her kid is sneaky and manipulative but he's just barely earned his license and he texts his mother without complaint when he's going to be on the road – even if he’s only driving a few blocks – because he knows she worries and somehow, somehow they – well, _Regina –_ raised a remarkable boy who is going to be a good man. Emma will take credit for some of his sense of humor and his ability to defend himself in a fight, but his heart, the intensity with which he believes...that's all Regina. 

_nice try kid, and stop complaining the bug is a legacy. ur driving a classic so b careful w it._

Because if the car comes home safe so does the driver. She's still not good at saying the words, still struggles to find the ease with which her son and his mother communicate but she and Henry have slowly built their own language.  Its syllables are teasing and hair ruffling, its letters rough affection and a shared need to protect what they love.  And just when she worries it’s not enough, that _she's_  not enough, he'll find a way to make her understand that it is, that she is, that she’s wanted and that this weird little accidental (or maybe fated, but Emma tries not to think about that) family is perfect just the way it is.  

_whats up w/ u on mom's phone? everything ok?_

_yeah she's fine just finally asleep,_ Emma types quickly.

He’s Regina's son through and through but Emma can picture the exact scowl on Henry's face as he punches at his phone, can see as vividly as if he were standing in front of her the way his brow pulls down and his eyes – her shape, Neal’s color, but the frown is all Regina – focus.  It makes her smile again but there is something heavy pulling at her lips even as she types back her response because at 16 he's lost and found and lost again so many pieces of his family that even now, when their lives have been what passes for quiet for almost two years, there’s a part of him that's still 10 and 11 and 12, his whole world breaking apart, losing his moms and his dad, meeting aunts who try to kill him or being thrown to the ground by power Emma can't control.

There's still a part of him that will always hang on to the fear.

He's not alone in that.

It lives in all of them.

Emma still wakes some nights, sweat-soaked and terrified, heart racing with a scream on her lips and the damp, cloying stench of Neverland in her nostrils.

Regina is quieter, trembling and crying out names that break Emma’s heart every time.

It’s much less common these days, but it’s still not unusual to find all three of them up at 3am, shuffling into the brightly lit kitchen, seeking shelter in light and warmth, the smell of cocoa and cinnamon or honey and tea and the presence of the only other people in the world who will understand the shadows they’re trying to escape.

Emma hates those nights, hates the helplessness she feels, hates that her arm around her son’s shoulders is never enough to take his mind off the dreams, hates that her arms around Regina's waist are never enough to banish the pain of her past or the doubts about the present, hates the grief and guilt in Regina's eyes when Henry joins them because knowing that her little prince has his own demons hurts Regina more deeply than anything she has endured in her own life. 

And yet…a part of her cherishes those nights, knows that Regina feels the same, because they have been alone and lonely, know what it is to wake in the darkness when there is no one who cares for them, know what it is to struggle to fall back asleep in clammy covers with the shadows creeping in, and now…now there is family and understanding, there is a hand grasping hers in the dark and gentle fingers in her hair, there are soft lips against her temple and a steady heartbeat beneath her ear. There is no alone anymore.

_good. b home soon, will b quiet._

Her mouth curves up in a smile as she sets the phone down and looks back at the woman sleeping against her.  This was never what Emma imagined when she turned her face away from the child she'd just struggled for hours to bring into the world, eyes burning with tears and her body aching, heart shattering at the sound of his cries and the words of the doctor proclaiming 'it’s a boy,' because she knew, she _knew_ she couldn't be a mother and all she'd so desperately wanted was for her son to _not turn out like her._

It was the first true wish she made since she had been a little girl hoping for a family, until a decade later when she blew out a star-shaped candle.

For all the shit life has thrown at Emma, for all the ways she’s been let down, she knows now she was granted that wish, because he's not like her at all. He's never known anything but a safe home and fierce love and she will never, ever be done being thankful that Regina was strong where she was weak, was brave where she was a coward, had love to give when Emma didn’t know how. It was never what she imagined but as Emma watches the steady rise and fall of Regina’s chest, the way her lashes break in a dark wave over her cheeks, she is grateful nonetheless. 

Every day Emma tries to find ways to convey that gratitude but she knows sometimes she fails, sometimes Regina doubts herself and nothing Emma can say or do can take away that particular tightness in her shoulders, the way she curls inward as if trying to protect an old wound. Their son knows, though, has learned that even if his parents made mistakes, he was always, always wanted, always, always had a place to call his own and people who would protect him with their lives.

It took him a while to see, to learn, but if Emma is proud of anything she’s done, it’s encouraging Regina to tell Henry some of what she'd gone through long before she became the character in that Book. It changed him, changed _them_. Emma wasn’t there for those conversations, only the aftermath, Regina’s exhaustion and watery smile and the way she sighed into Emma’s skin at night, whispering that it felt like an old infection had finally been lanced and letting Emma hold her close, hold her tight.

Whatever Regina said it was enough, though. Enough that Henry started asking _her_ questions about foster homes, about abuse, about things bad parents did. And because she promised never to lie to him again, Emma answered, no matter that each word was like nails scraping her throat because these were things her son should never have to understand and yet...Emma knows magic leaves no trace, she knows what happens to young women married to powerful old men, she knows what it is to be caught in a cage, and Emma never lived in a world where consequences of failure included beheading. So she answers what she can and watches as her precious little boy's eyes darken and she fears and fears.

For nothing. Because he's Regina's, because he's hers. He doesn't collapse under the weight of that knowledge. Instead, his shoulders straighten and he stands taller, raises his chin and there is something fierce and hard and angry in his eyes that she sees echoes of every time allusions to Regina's past are made, every time someone mentions foster care or bad families, sees it in the way he will stand in front of his mother when some foolish townsperson decides to blame Regina for some ridiculous petty unhappiness, feels it in the strength of the rare hugs he gives her.

They are scarred and imperfect, all of them, but somehow they fit.

Where none of them alone can survive, they are strong enough together.

 

 ~*~

 

A log crackles in the fire and Emma glances at the flames before returning her gaze to Regina. Sable hair spills over her shoulders and Emma's chest and the firelight brings out the bronze highlights in her skin, casting shadows over her face. She looks small and delicate like this, and the surge of protectiveness that swells in Emma’s chest nearly takes her breath away.

Unable to resist she reaches up with a hand that almost trembles, easing below the soft, worn fabric of the t-shirt Regina wears (the one she stole from Emma) to rest her palm on the smooth, taut skin of the swell of Regina’s belly.  Their little girl, their own accidental miracle (don’t play with magic kids) is quiet tonight and something between Emma’s shoulders eases knowing Regina will likely keep sleeping. She needs it, desperately, the pregnancy harder on her than either of them imagined. There is still a six pack of ginger ale and various types of fluids – juice, pedialyte, sports drinks – in the refrigerator that Emma keeps fresh even if they haven’t needed them in months because just the memory of watching Regina struggle against severe morning sickness and food aversions to barely keep on weight is enough to terrify Emma even now.  It took far too long for the dark circles under Regina’s eyes to fade, for the fear that _something_ was wrong to dissipate. Now she’s tired and cranky and has swollen ankles but a gentle smile that tends to linger.

She still feels too small to Emma, though, so very fragile and utterly human.

Gentle fingertips stroke soft patterns below Regina's navel, making silent promises she knows better than to say out loud even if she’s weak enough to repeat them over and over again in her head; peace, happiness, a family that will never let her go.  Emma remembers staring at featureless concrete walls, hand on her own belly as her son stirred inside her. One of the few times she'd allowed herself to cry in prison, forced to acknowledge the life within her even as she knew she could never keep it, that this baby, though part of her, could never stay with her. She'd been too damaged, too full of self-loathing with no hope, no belief in happy endings of any kind. So she'd cried and hated herself and gasped apologies to the life under her hand that he would never hear because she was doing to her child what had been done to her.

She was sending him away.

The familiar uneven rumble of the Bug teases the edge of Emma's hearing, the child she’d once never imagined seeing again in her life now a young man who might be stronger than both his mothers, just outside the door, coming home.

 

 ~*~

 

Once, on one of the nights Emma woke in a cold sweat from a dream where yet another monster stole her family from her while she was helpless to prevent it, she had wandered down to the kitchen to find Henry already there. Neither had spoken as she poured them both a glass of milk, but when her shoulders finally stopped aching from tension, she'd asked if he still believed - if happy endings were still possible. 

To any other family that question might have been a joke, but Henry -- her 15-year-old son -- had looked at her with eyes far, far too old for the youthful planes of his face. 

"Of course," he'd said, voice too deep for his still-slim frame that was only now filling out. "You and mom, you're the heroes, but a hero’s journey always has to have conflict and setbacks. There always has to be struggle." And he'd said it so matter of fact, as if he was still talking about the storybook Emma hadn't seen in a very long time.

Even after six years of being a literal Disney princess, Emma is still a pragmatist at heart, still a child of the world beyond Storybrooke's borders. She doesn't believe in Happily Ever After. As the engine noise cuts out and Regina shifts in her arms, sighing softly before easing back into a deeper sleep, Emma admits, however, that she's come to believe in Happily Right Now, and that’s perhaps all any of them can ask for. 

 

~*~

 

The lock clicks softly in the silence and Emma feels the magical wards bend, recognizing and welcoming Henry home. The door shuts carefully and Emma hears the lock turn again. There are two soft thumps -- Henry taking off his shoes -- and then nothing. He's gotten good at stealth over the years, but Emma isn't surprised when he steps through the door to the study and comes over to the couch, his eyes falling on his sleeping mother.

Something in the set of his spine, in the line of his mouth softens, but that fierceness in eyes, Emma recognizes that, sees it in the mirror whenever she thinks of her family. He doesn’t say anything, though, just reaches down and pulls the blanket at the end of the couch over Regina, tucking it carefully around her waist before leaning on the back of the couch.

“Did you have a good time?” Emma asks as softly as possible.

The way Henry’s eyes crinkle at the corners tell her the answer even if he’s still staring at Regina and his smile is soft.

“Yeah,” he admits after a minute, turning to her, grin blooming and still reminiscent of that 10-year-old boy on her doorstep.

“Good. Do you need to eat?” Because she doesn’t want to move, but Regina would want her to ask, would ask herself if she was awake.

Henry just shakes his head though. “I’m good. I’m gonna go up and read for a while. Night, Ma.”

She smiles at him as he turns to go. “Hey kid?”

A raised eyebrow – god he really is Regina’s son.

“I’m proud of you, you know that right? We both are.”

The words surprise him, she can tell. He smiles that little-boy smile even if his eyes, his eyes are never going to be that young again. It’s enough, though, enough that he steps back and bends down to quickly kiss the top of her head. “Love you, too, Ma,” he whispers before looking down at Regina and brushing a hand over the blanket.

Emma watches the way he moves as he heads toward the stairs, quiet and sure, Regina’s little prince in more than name. The fire is mostly embers now and the snow is falling harder outside, but the house is warm and close, the gentle quiet of a _home._ Letting her head fall back to the cushion behind her, Emma closes her eyes and lets herself doze off. Distantly she can hear the wind pick up, but it makes no difference. She’s warm and content, her family safe and together, Regina peaceful in her arms.

Emma isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Not ever again if she can help it.

 

FIN

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> It's actually my very firm belief that canon Emma and Regina - if they were ever to really be in a relationship - would adopt if they wanted more children. I think given both their pasts it would be incredibly important to them to give another little girl or boy their best chance but for some reason I keep finding ways to knock them up. I don't get it either since I hate kids and I don't like baby fic but here we are. 
> 
> Thank you Typeytypeytypey for the beta. Any mistakes and tense abuses are my own..


End file.
